I wonder if the rules of algebra could be applied to ruminating or complaining. Once we have mentioned two items that bother us we switch gears and list one praiseworthy thing we are grateful for. Or are two negative facts of life a positive? Perhaps they could formulate an unspoken rule of sorts...

My mind, steeped in warped humour, immediately went to: “Well if two bank robbers get arrested and go to jail that is a positive..."

Yesterday I called my mother and she instantly shot down the idea of my moving to a remote Alberta town with 52 people in it. The thing is you can buy cheap property there, which I have never experienced yet and I want to. Then I remembered how tiny the houses are and realized I could not live decreased to that extent. That entire process was a mixture of negatives and positives tumbling over a rough terrain and coming to rest on a decision that is best for me. 

If for every two letters I email to my government asking for changes to be made so that our laws are updated and the poor are helped more, I consider that a positive. I have not seen the changes yet but doing something I could do versus feeling helpless is uplifting. I have also asked the powers that are here in my province and nation to update laws like public intoxication and the "open liquor," offence (carrying an alcoholic beverage while being drunk in public) to include illicit drug use in public. I acknowledged another negative and worked on making it a positive.

"You're so negative," I have been told, and; “Thoughts become things." While I am not a “Think myself into a sports car," philosopher, I am not a giggling, giddy goose either. "I am a realist not an idealist." Is my rebuttal. And: "I am not anything just because you say I am." Maybe part of being positive is learning to love and support ourselves exactly where we are, how and who we are right now, and knowing how to hand back someone else's negative behaviour.

"When we accept our limits we can rise above them," someone once told me. Maybe it is the same with all facets of life; when we accept what and how things are we can navigate them better. Just not in a sports car. 

Bailey

A Moodscope member